“Dare to look to the future”. Because we remember the past and we live in the present, we hold dear the future. We never know what tomorrow might bring and we love dreaming about adventures and space ships and brave heroes fighting against evil aliens. That was the origin of characters such as Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers back in the 30s, almost a century ago the public wanted to read about courageous men proving their mettle in a science fiction context. In 1950, Frank Hampson created his own version of Buck Rogers for England. The new character, named Dan Dare, appeared in the pages of Eagle, Britain’s most famous comic book at the time. The daring exploits of Dan Dare, pilot of the future, were published throughout several decades. I was lucky enough to read some stories from 2000AD old progs (late 70s and early 80s). Although I was more familiar with the new version of the character as written by Gerry Finlay-Day and illustrated by Dave Gibbons (how could I forget a supporting cast composed by Gunnar and Big Bear!), I was also made privy to some of the earliest quests of the space hero. In those classic tales, Dan Dare would be accompanied by Digby, a sidekick who was also the comic relief of the title. The rest of the cast would be completed by miss Peabody and Sir Hubert.In the same way that the honorable Flash Gordon would defeat the ruthless Emperor Ming or the bold Buck Rogers would annihilate menacing aliens, Dan Dare would face the evil Mekon, ruler of Venus and lord of the Treens, a skeletal green figure with a humongous head. Aimed at children in the 50s, these Dan Dare stories portrayed a clear difference between good and evil, in this tautological dichotomy Dan Dare would be honest, good, honorable and kind, while the Mekon would be deceitful, evil, corrupted and unforgiving. Sometimes it can be comforting, especially to children or immature minds, to think of the world in black and white terms: there is good and there is evil, and nothing else. Surely it would be naïve to think that the world can be reduced to two opposing terms, but 70 years ago it seemed to work alright. In 1991, Grant Morrison decided to demonstrate that Dan Dare should no longer be deemed as a childish and one-dimensional space adventurer. And thus, DARE was born.In the opening pages of “The Controversial Memoirs of Dan Dare”, we see that time has caught up with the pilot of the future. Back in 1950, sci-fi writers really enjoyed referencing ‘distant’ dates such as 1999, and so on. Consequently, Dan Dare was living in the 90s, and all the classic imagery from the 50s -space rockets, green men from Mars, ray guns and computers as big as buildings- were introduced in these early stories as an example of a technology so advanced that it could only belong to the future.In Morrison’s Dare, the future is the present. Dan Dare lives in the 90s, and all those golden dreams about the space conquest or a better and brighter future for humankind seem forever lost. Once Britain’s most acclaimed hero, Dan Dare is now an exhausted man scraping on his military pension, trying to write his memoirs to get some money out of it. But of course, he is not a writer, he’s an aging hero who can’t make heads or tails about the relevance of his past deeds. Did his victory against the wicked Treens secure life on Earth? After so many years of battles against the Mekon, is that war finally over? After so much sacrifice, pain, tears and blood, was it all worth it?

It is in this context in which the former colonel of the Space Fleet finds out that a colleague from his past, miss Peabody, has committed suicide. Overwhelmed by grief, Dan Dare assists to the funeral. There are only 8 people there. 8 people paying their respects to a woman that had saved our planet hundreds of times. Besides Sir Hubert, Dan runs into his old friend, Digby, now a bitter old man who refuses to talk with him.

Hughes original architecture / original arquitectura de Hughes

In a state of despair, the pilot of the future will be an easy prey for Gloria Monday, the cruel and manipulative prime minister that is the identical replica of Margaret Thatcher. Indeed, Morrison (just like Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and many other legendary British authors) had publicly expressed his repudiation toward Margaret Thatcher (the Scottish creator even wrote a story about a teenager that prepares himself to assassinate the Iron Lady in “St. Swithin’s Day”). Gloria Monday has been in power for several years, and election time is coming. London is in chaos, her credibility is diminishing, people in the North are starving, constant strikes threaten to cripple the entire nation, and Monday considers that for her long term policy to come to fruition she must be reelected once again.

the abandoned Space Fleet / la Flota Espacial abandonada

Gloria Monday reminds Dan of his current financial problems, and emphasizes that an old war hero deserves so much more than a meager pension. Should Dan Dare decide to endorse her candidacy and be her new publicity stunt, he could make a lot of money. Unbeknownst to the colonel, without him, the woman has no chance of getting reelected. Nonetheless, the possibility of a large check is sufficient in the end. The hero of yesterday turns into the lackey of the present.For anyone who has read the thrilling feats of the Pilot of the Future, it’s heartbreaking to observe the shortcomings of the hero. Unable to stand on his own, both figuratively (he is a man that can’t support himself economically) and literarily (due to war lesions, he can’t walk without a cane), Dan Dare will submit himself to the ploys of a huge marketing campaign. He is an unwilling accomplice to the government, and although he pretends to remain politically neutral the truth is that his heroic nature has long succumbed to the weight of age. Even so, prompted by Digby, he discovers an unsettling tape in which miss Peabody, hours before dying, reveals the truth about the government. All the unemployed teenagers that had been recruited to work in space were massacred and butchered, and turned into a biomass fueled by the Treens technology. This biomass secretes a gooey substance, an excrescence which is being transformed by British scientists into Manna, a substitute for food that will put an end to the upheavals in the North. Digby makes Dan accept that the Great Britain he used to defend and fight for no longer exists. All that remains is a wounded and hopeless country. Dan sees the derelict facilities of the Space Fleet before it was privatized and remembers the glorious days of the space conquest. He visits the cabin of Anastasia, his old spaceship, and confirms that this is a fight he can’t win with laser rays. As Digby takes Dan to the North, he realizes that all teenagers are either recruited to work off-world or are deeply addicted to a dangerous drug produced by Treen refugees. Indeed, after so many decades of war, the defeated Treens are now coexisting with humans in the most miserable and wretched urban areas. This is a bleak and depressing future, and for all his cunning and altruism, Dan Dare has finally found a trouble that he can’t solve.

One of the things I love the most about Morrison’s approach is how he defies the reader, in the same way that he defies the people who voted for Margaret Thatcher. Whenever we elect a leader, aren’t we at least partially responsible for the atrocities committed during his or her government? Dan Dare had killed Treen workers who were only defending their rights, and he had even murdered children. Digby was never able to forgive those callous actions. But isn’t Digby just as guilty as Dan Dare for simply standing by and watching all the horror without ever interfering? “What went wrong? What’s going wrong? We were going to build Utopia. A golden future for everyone” asks the pilot of the future, and his former sidekick, without hesitation replies “We built on shite, that’s what went wrong. It’s no foundation. Sooner or later you sink in it, right up to your neck. And that’s when you find you’re not alone. There are poor people down there, there are sick people and hundreds of murdered children”. Searching for clues in miss Peabody’s house, Dan Dare and Digby are surrounded by a group of soldiers. Here the last trace of swashbuckling sci-fi missions is gone, as the armed men coldly attack the heroes. Dan, with his limp, can barely escape. He’s not a young warrior ready to defeat his enemy. The only one brave or fool enough to stay behind is Digby, who manages to gun down three soldiers before the others put a bullet in his head. It’s a cold and harsh ending for a hero that had survived in so many crazy adventures, against a myriad of aliens and space menaces. He meets his end on his own country, trying to defend his ideals.Up to this point, in every decade (the 50s or the 80s), the success of Dan Dare was guaranteed. That’s not the case here. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Gloria Monday knows this, for her, the pursuit of power is almost as rewarding as power itself. She sends guards to retrieve Dan Dare and as the former space explorer is forced to attend the celebration of her victory, he understands that without him, the woman would have lost the elections. The figure of a noble hero was enough for the prime minister’s marketing department to insufflate new life into an already waning political figure. And then comes the last moment of damnation: the arrival of the Mekon. For years, considered humankind’s greatest enemy, he’s now one of Monday’s closest allies. In this groundbreaking graphic novel about politics, power and Thatcherism, Morrison teaches us a lesson. To stand idly by and watch how the world turns into ruins makes us guilty by association. Dan Dare understands this too late: his life is already forfeit. I understand that DARE was very polemic when it originally came out. I guess it was hard for everyone to watch their childhood hero losing the one battle that counted the most. The laser guns, the green Treen, the big headed Mekon, it all seemed so trivial amidst the painful reality of a future devoid of hope and freedom. Certainly, this 72 page odyssey wouldn’t have been the same without Rian Hughes wondrous art. The artist is famous for his highly stylized approach, he is a master of design too and that shows in everything he does, from the titles to the covers and back covers of Dare, to the Art Nouveau architecture of ‘yesterday’s tomorrows’ (after all Rian has always felt fascinated by the anachronic vision of the future that people used to have half a century ago). Telephones, disc players, buildings, there is so much thought in every element that populates the pages of Dare. Clearly, Rian was able to embrace Grant’s vision of the future and visually capture it. Together, they create an unforgettable work of art about one of Britain’s greatest fictional heroes. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Comment without an Outhouse Account using Facebook

We get it. You don't feel like signing up for an Outhouse account, even though it's FREE and EASY! That's okay. You can comment with your Facebook account below and we'll take care of adding it to the stream above. But you really should consider getting a full Outhouse account, which will allow you to quote posts, choose an avatar and sig, and comment on our forums too. If that sounds good to you, sign up for an Outhouse account by clicking here.

Note: while you are welcome to speak your mind freely on any topic, we do ask that you keep discussion civil between each other. Nasty personal attacks against other commenters is strongly discouraged. Thanks!

Help spread the word, loyal readers! Share this story on social media:

About the Author - Arion

Arion, who is either from Chile or New York (it’s not really clear) writes a blog that the Outhouse steals on a regular basis. Arion is by far the nicest of all the staff writers and the most well behaved only having been banned from one country. One thing we really appreciate about Aroin is that he writes his reviews in English and Spanish and we hope someday he’ll translate this blurb for us. We’re not so good at languages, just look at how well we write in English if you need proof. You should bookmark Arion’s blog - http://artbyarion.blogspot.com – and actually look at it. There will be a quiz at the end of every month.